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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2014 6:45:35 GMT
Texts between Reeva Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius in the weeks before the model's death show her telling the “Blade Runner” that she’s falling in love with him, but that “sick people” are trying to fill her head with doubt about the relationship. Messages from the mobile phone texting app WhatsApp introduced at the double-amputee Olympian's murder trial in South Africa earlier this week quoted Steenkamp complaining to Pistorius about his jealousy and tantrums and saying “I’m scared of u sometimes.” Pistorius is charged with murder for shooting Steenkamp to death last February. In mid-January, she intimates to “Ozzy” that she’s falling in love with him. “Since Cape Town I hope that you’ve noticed a change in me and my feelings towards you,” she writes. “That I’ve let go. And let you in a lot. I just need you to understand that sometimes I’m still like a deer in the headlights.” She warns, however, that there are obstacles to their relationship. “Dating you comes with sick people trying to fill my head with doubt and I’m learning to trust what is real and safe,” says Steenkamp. “K baba … xx,” answers Pistorius. “I know you are. I know I’m not the easiest person to understand and I feel like you get me better than I sometimes know myself. You making me so happy and I know we argue from time to time but I think we actually so similar.” Steenkamp responds that they do have disputes, but that it’s not a serious problem. “Arguments with us are a struggle to find balance inside of new territory for us and trying to do so with a similar language,” she says. “It’s ok to argue about the things we argue about. At least it’s not fundamental values. “Xx you right my angel.. xx,” answers Pistorius. “You right.. x.”
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Post by Admin on Apr 7, 2014 15:07:39 GMT
Oscar Pistorius spent an emotional day on stand today crying repeatedly, apologizing to the family of his slain girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and eventually asking to quit early because he was emotionally and physically exhausted. He began his long awaited account by apologizing to Steenkamp's family. "There hasn’t been a moment since since this tragedy happened that I haven’t thought about your family. I wake up every morning and you’re the first people I think of, you’re the first people I pray for. I can’t imagine that the pain and sorrow and the emptiness that I caused you and your family," he said. "I was simply trying to protect Reeva. I can promise that when she went to bed that night she felt loved. I’ve tried to put my words on paper many many times to write to you but no words would ever suffice," Pistorius said. "I’m scared to sleep.... I have terrible nightmares about things that happened that night where I wake up and I can smell, I can smell the blood and I wake up to being terrified... I wake up in a complete state of terror, to a point that I’d rather not sleep than fall asleep and wake up like that." Pistorius told the judge that he has "lost a significant amount of weight." Pistorius also described one night when he awoke to a noise in his uncle's house and climbed into a cupboard to hide away. "I can't remember if it was towards the end of last year or beginning of this year, I woke up in a state. I have a security guard that stands outside my door at night, I woke up and was terrified and climbed into a cupboard to hide, I phoned my sister to come over and sit with me and she did." Earlier the defense startled the courtroom by admitting their earlier assertion that Pistorius had fired the gun in two "double taps" (two rounds fired almost simultaneously) was no longer the defense's case, but rather that Pistorius had fired in "rapid succession." This was immediately criticized by prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who pointed out that both the ballistics expert, Captain Chris Magena and the blood splatter expert Colonel Ian van der Nest testified and were cross-examined without this being mentioned.
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Post by Admin on Apr 8, 2014 21:32:03 GMT
The Oscar Pistorius murder trial was adjourned until Wednesday when the athlete broke down on the stand again. "I sat over Reeva," the athlete testified before sobbing loudly, putting his head in his hands. Pistorius, recounted how he heard a window sliding open in his bathroom in the early hours of the morning. "That was the moment when everything changed. I thought there was a burglar in my home...," he said.He said he grabbed his firearm from under the bed and proceeded towards the bathroom passage. "I heard a noise from the side of the toilet. What I perceived to be somebody coming out of the toilet. Before I knew it I had fired four shots at the door," said Pistorius. And when he finally broke down the door with a cricket bat, he found her in a pool of blood. “I sat over Reeva and I cried and I don’t know how long… I don’t know how long I was there for, she wasn't breathing…” His lawyer Barry Roux then asked him to change into the clothes he would have worn that night and to stand by the bullet ridden bathroom door. He said the couple had dinner about 7 p.m. and later sat chatting in the bedroom with the television on, and that Steenkamp showed him some photographs on her phone. He said he fell asleep between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. and woke up early the next morning. At that point, he said, Steenkamp asked him: "Can't you sleep?" '"No, I can't,'" Pistorius said he replied. Then he said stepped out to the balcony to get fans, and when he returned to the darkened bedroom he heard a noise from the bathroom. "That's the moment that everything changed," Pistorius testified.
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Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2014 0:34:03 GMT
Oscar Pistorius was the target of relentless and combative questioning Wednesday as the prosecutor in his murder trial tried to rattle the runner about the night he shot dead his model girlfriend. Vowing to "get to the truth" of the events that took place on Valentine's Day last year, prosecutor Gerrie Nel began a blistering cross-examination of the Olympic sprinter in the case that has gripped South Africa. "You shot and killed her. Say it -- 'I shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp,'" Nel told Pistorius. The prosecutor immediately boxed the double-amputee athlete into a corner in what his defense team described as an "ambush," by asking him about a video showing Pistorius shooting a watermelon at a gun range. No one disputes that Pistorius killed Steenkamp. But the prosecution is trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did so knowingly and intentionally. Sister of Oscar Pistorius, Aimee Pistorius, second from right, cries as she listens as her brother testifies in court in Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday, April 9, 2014. Pistorius is charged with the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on Valentines Day in 2013. The 27-year old has admitted to the killing but said he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder in the bathroom when he fired through the door and killed her. Before Nel went after Pistorius, Barry Roux -- the runner's defense lawyer -- had tossed his client a question to drive that argument home. He asked Pistorius if he had intentionally killed Steenkamp. "I did not intend to kill Reeva or anybody else for that matter," Pistorius replied. Later in the proceedings, as Nel probed him further, Pistorius insisted he thought he would be attacked when he heard noise coming from his bathroom that night. "I had a fear, I didn't have time to think, I discharged my firearm ... I didn't intend to shoot at anyone, I shot out of fear." According to his account, as he peered round the door of the bathroom - his outstretched right hand holding the pistol, his left hand steadying himself against the wall - he noticed the bathroom window was open, confirming his worst fears. "I wasn't sure where to point my firearm. I had it pointed at the toilet but my eyes were going between the window and the toilet. I stood there for some time. I'm not sure how long. "I just stayed where I was and kept on screaming. Then I heard a noise from inside the toilet that I perceived to be somebody coming out of the toilet. Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door."
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Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2014 21:30:39 GMT
Oscar Pistorius denied he picked on girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, his murder trial heard Thursday, as the chief prosecutor sought to portray the track star as an arrogant hothead who is reckless with guns. In a second day of blunt and aggressive questioning, prosecutor Gerrie Nel accused the double amputee of blaming other people for his mistakes, as he sought to prove the Olympic and Paralympic athlete murdered Steenkamp on Valentine's Day last year. Nel began by picking apart message exchanges between the couple, accusing the runner of screaming at his girlfriend and acting selfishly toward her. "I didn't treat her badly," Pistorius replied. Asked if Steenkamp had lied when she said he picked on her incessantly, Pistorius replied: "She never lied." He later added: "Reeva was never scared of me." Nel highlighted an incident in which Steenkamp complained in a message that Pistorius asked her to stop chewing gum. He also read a message in which she defended herself against Pistorius' accusations that she flirted at a party. "You were strong enough in that relationship to say stop your voices, stop your accents, stop chewing gum," Nel said. But Pistorius replied he gently told her to stop chewing gum before they got on camera at an event. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel gestures as he cross examines South African Olympic and Paralympic track star Oscar Pistorius during his ongoing murder trial in Pretoria. Nel said Pistorius never responded to Steenkamp's message in which she said, "I'm the girl who fell in love with you." "We did a search ... the phrase 'I love you' appears twice on her phone, to her mother," the prosecutor said. "Because it was all about Mr. Pistorius," Nel said. The athlete said he never got the opportunity to tell Steenkamp he loved her.
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